stand, so he sat down on the corner of the elevated stage and hummed to
himself. Presently the chorus cut out and he soloed thusly:
“I ain’t no Sousa, boys, an’ there ain’t no brass hangin’ to my pea
jacket, but say, if there’s any leader that can get more noise out of
them 28 than I can, I’ll eat every bit of sawdust under the tent an’ say
thankee when I’m done.”
Nobody disputed this distinction and the leader continued to cadenza:
“It ain’t no snap tossin’ off melody for a show like this. When I’m out
with the minstrels in the winter the game’s easy, but the snap is nothin’
but blow, an’ you’ve got a lot of crazy ones in the ring here to take
cues from. An’ talkin’ about them 28 of mine, there ain’t no show band in
the country that can beat ’em switchin’.”
“Say, you know the night we opened in the Garden? Well, we was playin’
‘The Holy City’ for the guy in spangles what rolls hissef up the spiral.
The music plot was ‘Holy City’ to the top, a little of the shiver while
he was makin’ the last turn, an’ then a lot of brass an’ bing-bing when
he makes the rush to the ring. Well, the boys were playin’ the ‘Holy
City’ fine and daisy when the equestrian director comes across the track
an’ whispers:
“‘Here’s Dewey comin’ up by the reserved section.’
“So I knows he wants somethin’ appropriate, an’ I gives the signal for
‘Here Comes a Sailor.’ Well, them twenty-eight switches like a limited
on a clear track an’ the crowd on the boards goes wild. But the guy in
the tin ball, he’s been kneelin’ it up to ‘The Holy City,’ an’ when the
music changes to swift he can’t work his knees fas’ enough an’ he lets go
an’ nearly breaks his back. He calls me a Dutch somethin’, I didn’t jes’
catch, an’ it costs him 25 fine off the pay sheet.
“An’ speakin’ about noise, fifteen year ago I leaves home, where I was
workin’ in a harness factory and leadin’ the Silver Cornet Band in the
evenin’, an’ goes on the road with a medicine show. We has one of them
long-haired boys doin’ the fake dentist an’ pullin’ teeth without pain
while his wife does the female doctor an’ sells pills. We six brass has
to play when Doc an’ his wife is workin’, an’ in the mornin’ go back of
the stage an’ roll pills an’ put ’em in fancy boxes what Doc sells with
the packages of Australian gold pens, the little joker transparent cards
an’ the South American Cyroola Corn Cure what he gives away to each an’
every purchaser of Dr. Sorino’s Death Delayin’ Pellets.
“Well, the game was to git some coon in the crowd to come up on the stage
an’ have his tooth pulled for nothin’ an’ without pain. Doc gets the moke
in the chair an’ makes his spiel ’bout the great pain killer he has an’
says it won’t hurt the boy on the velvet. The band was all brass except
Cooney Watson, who was playin’ a kettle drum an’ workin’ the bass and
cymbals with a pedal. While Doc was gittin’ the forceps on the tooth we
played soft an’ quiet like an’ as soon as he gives the jerk we lets loose
with a march an’ you can’t hear nigger man holler to save your life. It
was great, an’ it worked the countries all the times. Cooney would make
you think there was a thunder storm comin’ up the way he beat them drums.
“But poor Cooney. Doc picks up six Indians to make the show stronger an’
introduce his famous Indian bitters. The red boys had a new moon an’ asks
Cooney to loan ’em the drum to do the Tom Tom. Cooney says no an’ the
Big Chief gets good an’ sore, but says nothin’. The next day we has a
parade an’ we brass is on top of a wagon with Doc’s ads, painted on the
side. The Indians is ridin’ along behind us. Well, say, we had hardly
hit the main street when the Indian what was sore on the drummer throws
his lariat and lassos poor Cooney off the wagon, drums an’ all, into the
middle of a bunch of cows what was gettin’ weighed. He was pretty bad, so
we shipped him home.”
“That ain’t Cooney beatin’ the drum with us, is it?” asks the Boss
Canvasman as he tied a long running knot in the guy rope to the net under
the swings for the brother act.
“No indeed,” says the Leader, “Cooney never joins out again. The las’ I
seen of him he was workin’ at his trade out in Indianny--he was paintin’
the roof of the courthouse when we had the parade.”
THE CANDY BUTCHER TALKS ABOUT A LOVE AFFAIR AND HIS ENCOUNTER WITH THE
BUCKWHEAT MAN.
The Candy Butcher of the Big Show looked like a cut-out in a Sunday
supplement. He was the best dressed man in the outfit, and no matter what
he was doing and where he was doing it he always looked fixed up, and he
felt it.
His pants were always creased whether the show was doing a run in the
large city or playing the one-nighters on a single-track jerk-water
beyond the Wabash. He never wore his coat when working, and his loud
linen would have stopped a limited with one flash from the tower. He
was there with the pink underwear, and his stockings had more kinds of
color in them than the side of the band wagon when the season was new.
The Candy Butcher was always dressed, and when he got behind the counter
to pull off the “Five tonight, good people!” gag he would have made
the window of an East Side gents’ furnishing store drop the curtain.
The Candy Butcher didn’t mix in much with the men in the outfit. He had
a chemical moustache that he zephyred with a velvet voice, and he was
always aces with the ladies. When Section One was pulling out for a long
Sunday jump, be sure of Him for the day coach with the girls. He was good
at that, and, while he didn’t always make a landing, he managed generally
to get his bowline fast to the pier before the current caught him.
He always wore his coat in the meal tent, but he took it off right after
supper and carried it on his arm. The make-up didn’t miss the ulster
much, for he had on a vest that was three strikes and out for rainbow
colors--one of those rum omelette tinted things that a Philadelphia
button buyer puts on for Saturday night when he’s waiting at the stage
door for some spotlight Sadie. He was there with the cheap tailors, all
right.
The squatters on the ring bank were just settling for the afternoon gab
while the equestrian director, sore because he couldn’t get away to keep
a date, was rearranging the horse acts with a piece of a pencil on the
back of the night’s card. The Candy Butcher came through a crevice in
the tent and stopped to talk to the Saw Dust Spreader, who was standing
behind the wardrobe basket pulling on his plush pants.
“What you dressin’ for?” said the Candy Butcher.
“Oh, they’re gettin’ cheap,” said the Saw Dust Spreader. “I’ve got to
double for an object holder, an’ I’m up for the leaps right after the
entree.”
“What do you care,” said the Candy Butcher, “long as peppermint is
striped?”
Then he laughed at his own little trade journal joke. He was full of
those. He was always reading song books and joke budgets when waiting to
get up on the blue boards to sell tickets for the concert after the show.
He came across the track and joined the gang.
“Gee!” said the Side Show Spieler, who was always good on the opening
line, “youse dressed up for fair tonight! Looks like youse goin’ to a
birthday party.”
“Not for me,” replied the Candy Butcher, as he put another piece of gum
under the mustache. “Cut out the parties for Willie in the Summer an’
after this in the winter no more front parlor talks for me after ma is
in bed an’ the old man is out in the cold switchin’ down in the railroad
yard.”
“Sore again,” said the Concert Manager; “you’ve always got your kick
comin’ on sumthin’.”
“Well, I wouldn’t,” said the Candy Butcher, “but you fellows is allus
runnin’ me in when it comes to any girl talk. Say, I ain’t the masher of
this outfit, take it from me. If I could do the look killin’ an’ have ’em
runnin’ me like the boy what does the principal bareback--the popcorn and
the soft drinks--well, no more for Jamesie.”
The gang sort of warmed up to this talk, so he let her out another notch
and began.
“Say,” he continued, “youse fellows is allus lookin’ for sumthin’ soft.
Well, say, I’ve got a game for this season that will kill ’em. No more
kicks over the lemonade tub for me. I’ve got ’em all skinned on the sour
juice game. Say, you may not know it, but it’s a losin’ game when you’r
runnin’ to one-nighters and sellin’ lemon juice. It looks good to see me
hollerin’ over the chunk of ice an’ takin’ in the half dimes while I’m
passin’ out the cold drink an’ the peanuts; but, say, you never thought
how many of them nicks it takes to buy a box of lemons. All right, all
right in the city, bo’, for the yellow boys, but when you are run out in
the meadows it’s diff’rent, diff’rent.
“So, says I, during the winter when I’m managin’ me penny arcade wid the
talkin’ machines, says, ’ll get up a scheme that will make the lemons
back to the shady groves for you, no more fore me. An’, say, I gits me
think tank on it and I invents sumthin’. Say, you’ll laugh, but I pulled
it off this afternoon, an’, say, they all fell for once.”
“What is it, Bill?” asked the Old Grafter, always ready for a new shot at
the purse.
“‘What is it?’ Well, say! You know how them guys is stringin’ you about
fake lemonade, ’cause you ain’t got no yellow slices floatin’ on the top
of the tub. Well, what is you goin’ to do when lemons is 45 per, an’
even the barkeeps is usin’ the acid for the sour. Well, me, I just has
a dozen lemon slices made out of celluloid, an’, say, Bill, you can’t
tell ’em from the real, ’pon my word, boy, when they is floatin’ aroun’
in the tub after I has poured in me water, me citric acid and me sugar.
Why, say, it looks like one of them things at a Fresh Air give-out, where
everything is dun on the level, ’cause the reporters is watchin’. I jes’
works me celluloid slices on the stan’, an’ when biz is dun wipes ’em
off, puts ’em in the box, an’ theyse jes’ as good as new, an’ there’s
more comin’ to the Dime Savin’ for Will, an’ that’s no song book wit.”
The crowd eyed him in silence with that awe that meets a pack of
undergraduates when they first gaze upon the man who discovered some new
chemical analysis they never expect to understand.
The Saw Dust Spreader joined the crowd just then looking like a cheap
leading man in a ten and twenty “Carmen,” with the red pants and the
little coat. It was he for gossip, so he broke in.
“Yes, you’re pretty good,” he said to the Candy Butcher, remembering the
laugh he got when he came across the tan bark. “But, say, where was you
all last week? No lyin’ now, Willie, ’cause I’m on, dead on.”
“Well, I dunno that it’s any secret,” said the Candy Butcher. “I dun me
duty an’ I suffered for it.”
The gang looked like a listening party, so he began to reel:
“Say, it’s pretty tough when a fellow starts out to do the right thing by
a little lady and gets the flag. It jes’ shows that whenever you gits to
dreamin’ good somebody is goin’ to give you an alarm clock finish an’ let
you wake up with a shriek. Remember two seasons ago, when we was workin’
the Congress of Nations gag in the manager’s tent? Well, me it is who
meets a little lady who is doin’ the bead stitchin’ in the gypsy village.
She’s a pretty little thing an’ quietlike. Well, she seems lonesome like
an’ one wet night I carries her across the lot when the mud is up to your
knees. She seems to like it an’ we has a long talk in the car.
“It seems that she used to work in a bean place where she is called
Number 8. I thinks that is funny, so I allus calls her Number 8.
“Seems like her folks was sore on her for troopin’, an’ she comes to me
for sympathy. Well, she had me stoppin’ the booze before we was two weeks
out, an’ I was gettin’ quiet in me gab and cuttin’ down on the swear
talk. She tells me the way she gets into the circus is that a big guy
what was engagin’ people for the Congress used to eat his butter cakes at
her table, an’ he keeps on tellin’ her what a fine life it is to be an
actress, an’, as he has been readin’ about it in books, she throws up the
waitin’ job and joins out. The big guy gets half of her first week for
the gettin’ her the job.
“But it seems that when Number 8 pulls out of the bean place that she
breaks the heart of the guy with the white cap that cooks the buckwheats
in the window. He’s been sweet on her from the first day she hollered
the hot cakes an’ he pulls ’em off the griddle an’ looks into her eyes.
Well, this guy takes a solemn oath that he’ll kill the bloke that makes
his Mamie give up waitin’ an’ go troopin’. He never gets next to the big
jay what gave her the job, but when he was doin’ the big city he sees me
chasin’ her home every night. He gives me a look I don’t like, an’ I asks
Number 8 what it means.
“‘Oh, don’t mind him’ she says, ‘he used to belong to my euchre.’
“Now, if I’d been wise I’d a-known Number 8 was connin’, for what did
that little fairy know about euchre parties? I knows now that she was
pullin’ off some speech she heard in the theatre where the lady shoots
the dook across the card table because he brings the coachman into the
parlor to get a drink while the other dook is sayin’ his good-by speech.
I is too sweet on the fairy then to know that she’s connin’ me.
“Well, jes’ the last week we was playin’ New York, who does I meet in the
park lookin’ at the fish but Number 8. She looks so sweet an’ nice that
it all comes back, an’ me up an’ speaks. She says sorter haughty:
“‘Who are you, sir? Whom are you addressin’?
“Say, that hit me like a blast, when all of a sudden I get a welt across
the head wid sumthin’ that is iron. Say, I falls, but is up, and though
the knock has given me the blood, I see that it’s the guy what cooks the
buckwheats in the window who was tryin’ to do the killin’. An’ say, he
has run out of his bean place an’ hit me wid the cake turner. I grasps
him, an’ it’s catch-as-catch-can, an’ Number 8 screamin’ on the bench. I
gives him a couple of good ones when in a jiffy it’s rainin’ plates an’
coffee cups, an’ I’m gettin, ’em on the face. Say, his whole gang from
the bean shop was out in their white coats, throwin’ the crockery an’ me
gettin’ it.
“I knows the show is shut up an’ help is a long way off. Somebody yells,
‘Lick the brute,’ an’ I gets another pie plate in the eye.
“‘What’s he done?’ says a cab driver.
“‘He insulted me wife,’ said the buckwheat cake man.
“I tried to explain, but he gives me another one with the cake-turner an’
I’m on the asphalt.
“I’se gettin’ it good, an’ I sees I must get help or cut the season for
the city ward. So I yells ‘Hey, Rube!’
“Well, what do you think? There was a couple of old tramps a-sleepin’ on
a bench, an’ when they hears me scream, me on me back wid the buckwheat
man sittin’ on me, I sees ’em move, I yells it again, an’ one of them
wearies says:
“‘That sounds familiar-like to me.’
“‘Hey, Rube!’ I gives it again, an’, say, they gets in, an’ they put that
waiter gang into a pile that looks like a hash brown in a spill.”
“Well, what happened to you?” said the Canvasman, who was always there
for the battle tales.
“Me, say, I gets it all. A couple of dinnys pulls me to a box, an’ in the
cell all night for me. An’, say, if it hadn’t been for James A., Lord
bless his soul, me to the island for winter quarters an’ in stripes.”
“But what becomes of the fairy?” says the Saw Dust Spreader, who always
likes to know the finish.
“What becomes of her?” says the Candy Butcher, feeling a couple of scars.
“I hears it all later. She had married the guy an’ moves over to Jersey.
He’s keepin’ a saloon, an’ she’s cookin’ the oysters. He gives one with
every drink.”
THE CONCERT MANAGER GETS REMINISCENT.
The manager of the concert company looked like a Methodist minister
going to see the bishop. He wore a high silk hat and a last-winter’s
double-breasted coat. Whenever he talked he held the hat in one hand and
rubbed it with the other so that it looked like a clipped yearling at a
country run off. His voice was a deep bass, and when he did the “remember
good people the Big Show is not yet ’arf over” from the elevated stage
you could gamble on the words hitting every ear.
He was sitting on the ring bank looking over his touch list when the
conversation grew wavy and then dropped to a hush.
“This here tent business is pullin’ down to a theatrical man,” he said
as he lighted a choked stogie. “Give me the hall show every time for the
cush and comfort an’ I’ll be easy an’ shippin’ in money to the backer
if the bookin’s is good. The rep shows is the thing me boys if you can
deliver, an’ you can strike territory that ain’t been ploughed to death
by a lot of yellows.
“Had out a rep company that was a winner. We was playin’ ‘East Lynne’ and
doin’ it good with six people and a band on the balcony at 7 to 8. The
way we threw them dramatic chunks into the ten, twenty and thirts was
sumthin’ remark’ble. We wasn’t connin’ neither, but givin’ ’em a show
that had ’em weepin’ from ring up to las’ curt’n. Say, I had a leadin’
lady that was the genuine. She had been up three times before the school
commissioners for declaimin’ an’ her old man thought she was a Mary
Anderson. We joshed him along on the Mary Anderson gag an’ the old guy
checked in with a five hundred for a starter to get the fit up and the
gal’s costumes. Say, she was a blonde with a figure that set the town
hall tonight people on the road to ruin with all brakes off. The leadin’
man was a cuff juggler and he wouldn’t settle down, but he doubled in
props an’ was all right. The heavy was one of those chesty boys who was
alles givin’ me the jab ‘when I was with Booth.’ He started out all
right, all right in the first act, but he died out before the curt’n got
down; the old man was pretty rotten, thank you, but the way he could play
an E flat cornet on the balcony was sumthin’ strictly proper. I’m jes’
tellin’ youse what you can do with a lot of bum players, if you’ve got
the goods, an’ youse gets the bookin’s. I was workin’ the crowd on a $300
salary an’ playin’ up into the gross on $750 a week an’ livin’ like the
man what owns his lay out. But I let go.
“You see some of the managers down on the coal oil circuit in Central
Pennsylvania got the vaudeville bug and was yellin’ for specialties.
So I gets the soubrette to do a rag time stunt between the second an’
third, an’ the first night the gal’ry window jumps nine and a half to
the good. I says that’s what they wants an’ I keeps the specialty in for
good. But the Lady Isabel of the push was getting artistic an’ she says
no to the specialty. I says yes, an’ her old man comes on an’ says Mary
Anderson didn’t have no gal singin’ and showin’ her legs in her show, so
me an’ the old guy plays quits. Well, it was gettin’ warm, so I picks
up me little soubrette, gets a privilege at a fair an’ starts in to do
the black tent. We had a little round top, blacker on the inside than a
Bow’ry alley. The game was to get the yaps inside, all lights out, flash
the calcium, an’ then do the floatin’ illusion. The little gal would
float roun’ the tent an’ hand me out roses, and the gang would go daffy.
You see she was rigged up in one of these white gowns an’ was chasin’
round in a back flap stickin’ her head and body through wherever I had a
slit. But I has a good lime light man an’ the payin’s never coupled to
the con.
“It was good for thirty a day and the privilege was cheap, but say, the
finish was tragic. You see the gal had run off from home, where she was
makin’ three dollars spinnin’ yarn in a mill an’ payin’ her people two
fifty board. She gets stuck on the show business an’ goes out with a rep,
where I picks her up. Well, it seems that her old man gets sort o’ dippy
’cause he didn’ do the right thing by the little one an’ started out to
fin’ her. Somebody tells the old boy she is dead an’ he falls down for a
while. But he gets up and goes wanderin’ ’bout to all the shows lookin’
for the gal. Well, he gets into my show one day an’ when we flashes the
illusion there’s a yell an’ the old one says, ‘me daughter, me daughter,’
and the gal flops an’ breaks up the show. She gets sorry an’ goes home
with the gray hair an’ I loses the graft and strikes this.”
The Boss Canvasman started in to do a little cussin’ because the round
top over the stage was sagging and he broke up the talk.
But the Press Agent wants the finish of the yarn, and he speaks up:
“Well, Pop, what became of the gal?”
“Oh,” says Pop, “the old man goes under the ground an’ the jig stepper
goes back to the business. Last season she was doublin’ with the iron
chested man doin’ a singin’ specialty in the side show. But they’s both
out now. The iron chested man is yellin’ the stations on the Ninth Avenue
L, and the Mamie girl is makin’ ten a week posin’ for chromos that you
wouldn’t hang over the thermometer, s’ help me.”
THE HANDS AT THE WINDOW.
The man who sold the red paste-boards at the ticket wagon always dressed
better than the man who owned the circus. He ran largely to striped vests
and wore shirts that were of the sassiest shade of pink. Like the Candy
Butcher, he never wore his coat when he was working, but the vest and
the trousers made him a swell enough picture. The rest of the outfit
regarded him with the same awe that fills the spirit of a man earning
twelve dollars a week who accidentally runs into J. Pierpont Morgan. To
be sure, the Ticket Seller never had as much cash as the Wall Street man,
but he made a bigger flash. He always carried a roll, and as his accounts
never failed to balance and he stood good with the Boss, it was generally
presumed that the gold boys he carried in his upper vest pocket were his
own.
The gang that talked on the ring bank between the afternoon and the night
show had great respect for this member of the outfit. He had a line of
talk that sounded big, and that was always inspiring to the crowd. He
knew just what the Big Show was taking in, and he liked to talk about it.
He talked figures, and the ring bank crowd only knew it by the thousands
of people that roosted on the blue boards when the bill was being run
off under the main top. In the winter months, when the Big Show had gone
to quarters, the Ticket Man managed a burlesque house in Chicago, and it
was said that he wore so many diamonds on the pink bosom that it wasn’t
necessary to turn on the lobby lights when the night audience was coming
in. He was a loud boy, all right, but he backed the noise with coin. When
the Ticket Man wasn’t talking about money, he let loose a bunch of racing
talk that would have feazed the principal writer on a daily turf sheet.
He used words that seldom got farther than the paddock, and he picked
winners like a diamond expert getting out the real shines from a pile of
glass.
And with both lines of talk he had ’em all faded when it came to the
con. He had a line of explanations that would make any man think he
threw down a two-spot when he knew that he walked up to the window with a
double X.
“Lemme tell you fellows sumthin’” he said, as he came in after supper in
the meal tent and sat down for a smoke. “You’se can always hear a lot of
knockin’ for the boys what sells in the wagon. Now take it from me, don’t
youse believe a word of it till youse gets the other side. You hear a lot
of hollerin’ that ev’rybody is gettin’ done, and that the boys in the
wagon is buyin’ gov’ment bonds and furnishing flats on the short change
graft. But it ain’t so--not altogether. It was in the old days, when I
started in the business, but it ain’t now. Graftin’ is dead, take it from
me.”
“Yes,” said the Old Grafter, with a deep sigh, “you’re right, Bill,
graftin’ is dead, an’ it was a sorry day for me when it died.”
“You’re right, Jim; half way right, but it won’t go these days. But
what I’m tellin’ you is right; when you is sellin’ hard tickets to a
long line that is rushin’ to get to the tent, youse can’t go out and
have a personal interview with every man that runs away an’ leaves his
change on the window. An’ say, whose goin’ to take chances givin’ it
up when he does come back? Not me, not me; I see me little bank-roll in
the Dime Savin’s lookin’ like a busted baloon on the end of the season.
Say, don’t make no mistake, ev’ry hand at the window is a hand ag’in’
you. I know what I’m talkin’ about. There ain’t a man in the country who
don’t think he’s doin’ a smart trick when he beats a circus man out of
money. They’ll all do you when they can. Mark my word. I’ve been passing
out hard tickets with this outfit for nine years an’ long before that
with a fly-by-night, an’ I knows the game--ev’ry hand that comes up to
that window will do you if it can. I’ve had too many Reubs hand me a
two-dollar bill an’ say it was a tenner.”
“What do you do then?” asked the Concert Manager.
“Do?” said the Ticket Man. “Do? Why, I’d just look Reuben in the eye an’
say Brush on, haysy, you ain’t got a ten; wait till you sell your wheat
an’ come back an’ then I’ll gamble with you.”